A Material Transfer Agreement (“MTA”) is an agreement governing the transfer of a tangible material from one party to another. It is essential that these agreements be put in place before materials are shared to avoid misunderstanding between the parties and to protect their intellectual property and business interests. Examples of tangible materials are plant or microbial cultures, monoclonal antibodies, plasmids, nucleotides, proteins and chemicals.

A Non-Disclosure Agreements (“NDA”), or Confidentiality Agreement (“CDA”), is an agreement between two parties to keep shared information secret. These types of agreements are often required to protect business practices of potential business partners and early-stage research findings between research collaborators for later publication or patenting.

If you have a need to share tangible materials or unpublished research findings, submit your request directly to Innovation Gateway through our convenient online submission tool, Sophia. Logging in using your UGA MyID and password gives you access to make new submissions and review the status of your ongoing projects. Once you make your submission, the appropriate contract manager will be assigned and will arrange to discuss your new project.

Detailed instructions on how to use the online tool are available.

Innovation Gateway will:

• Identify the type of agreement needed to be put in place to protect researchers and the university’s interest in conjunction with the researchers and recipient.
• Review and negotiate the appropriate contract between the parties
• Notify researcher(s) once the agreement is in place or the appropriate sharing of materials or information.

All communication with the Innovation Gateway concerning material transfer requests and confidential disclosure requests should be directed to igcontracts@uga.edu.